


Why This Joyous Strain Prolong

by an_ardent_rain



Category: The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 21:54:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5472059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/an_ardent_rain/pseuds/an_ardent_rain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To any observer, the trio appears normal - a young group of friends dressed in black coats against the cold, laughing as they walk arm in arm down the frosty cobbled streets. They are bright and merry, full of warmth and the blush of youth. All three are grown, or nearly so, at the age where one is both child and adult.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Why This Joyous Strain Prolong

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spoke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoke/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! I tried to hit the "Nightmare Before Christmas" feel you mentioned in your letter, but that wasn't working out as well as I would have liked, so I changed direction a bit and just went cute and domestic. I hope that's all right! I love this book so, so, so much, and I love this world, and these characters, so it was intimidating to write this! It's a short, sweet little story and I very much hope you enjoy it!
> 
> There's kind of Bailey/Poppet sort of at the end, as a warning. For the most part, the story's gen, though.

To any observer, the trio appears normal - a young group of friends dressed in black coats against the cold, laughing as they walk arm in arm down the frosty cobbled streets. They are bright and merry, full of warmth and the blush of youth. All three are grown, or nearly so, at the age where one is both child and adult.

The man in the middle is tall, with broad shoulders and long, straight legs. His coat is heavy and impeccably tailored, and his hair curls at his neck. He is flanked on either side by a slender, red-haired figure. The one on his left is a young man with the fresh growth of beard on his cheeks, wearing a black hat atop hair a fierce, burning shade of red. He sucks on a piece of horehound candy, pulled from a paper sack nestled carefully in the right pocket of his trousers. The young woman on the left bears a striking resemblance to the man on the left. Her pale cheeks are flushed a rosy pink from the cold, the dress she is wearing a stunning white striped with great swathes of gold, the skirt full and trimmed with lace that drips down like the icicles that hang on the eaves. Her hair is the same bright red, but it is long and tumbling down her back in soft, windswept waves.

They are a perfectly matched set. 

No one spares them a second glance and gives them little thought apart from how young they look, and how happy - and how they are connected, so perfectly in step that it is difficult to discern where one ends and the next begins, their laughter and quiet talk layered perfectly like the harmonies of an old, familiar song.

“How are you feeling?” Widget asks around the candy in his mouth. He tugs the glove on his left hand down past the cuff of his sleeve. The air is growing steadily colder as the day draws closer to twilight and his skin stings from the winter’s chill. “It’s been nearly a week.”

“For Christmas shopping,” Bailey says. “That’s important.”

“Agreed,” Poppet says. She reaches around Bailey and taps her brother’s shoulder. He digs out a piece of candy and hands it to her. “And there’s going to be a terrible blizzard tonight - I imagine they’ve already put up the signs. The inclement weather party’s the perfect time to give our gifts.”

“Oh? Is tonight the night you saw a few weeks ago?” 

“I think so.” Poppet breathes out slowly and her breath hangs in a cloud of smoke in front of her mouth before it fades like mist in the day’s dwindling light. “I saw the set of combs she’s giving me in mother’s rooms, and you’re wearing the same hat.”

Widget touches the brim without a trace of self-consciousness. “It is my only hat, ‘Pet.”

She smiles and tightens her grip on Bailey’s arm as she leans over to look at her brother. “Well you’re wearing it the same way I saw you wear it. It’s tonight, I’m sure of it.”

“I thought it wasn’t a good vision,” Bailey said. Their pace has slowed as they get closer to the outskirts of town. The crowds of thinned and it won’t be long until they are alone. “You seem excited about it, though.”

“Not excited,” Poppet says, tossing back her waterfall of hair. “Anticipatory. It will be a relief when it happens, as it always is to some degree. Just to know that I won’t have to wait any more. I won’t have to wonder what or when. And I’m not sure it’s bad.”

(*)

Everyone is gathered in the acrobat’s tent when the arrive at the circus, enjoying the inclement weather party. It is close enough to Christmas that by unspoken agreement it has become a holiday party, as well, with trays of gingerbread and peppermint bark passed around, accompanied by rich, creamy cocoa spiced with stirring sticks of cinnamon. A table has been constructed and down the length of it sit dozens of presents, wrapped in various iterations of the circus’s signature black and white. Some are small, soft parcels in layers of white tissue, others come in black bags festooned with grey ribbon, and there are two matching gifts at the very end of table: one with shiny black paper tied with lacy white ribbon, and the other exactly its inverse. There is a card from Mr. Barris and Lainie Burgess expressing their deep regrets they could not attend, though they hope to see everyone soon.

The Murray parents give their daughter a lovely set of silver hair combs, inlaid with glistening pearl, set in a case lined with crushed red silk. Their son receives a similar case, but his contains a straight razor etched with his initials, and a soft brush and cup for shaving. 

Bailey’s gifts they do not unwrap until the three of them are alone. Widget’s is a thick book filled with poems and stories, different every time he flips through it. Poppet’s is a set of marbles that form the shapes of constellations whenever they are rolled out of their bag. Each little sphere contains a perfect replica of the Milky Way inside it, swirling purple and silver and black.

The snow begins not long after the party does, and it does not take long before it is a full-blown blizzard, with howling winds and unforgiving torrents of snow. Somehow, the tent remains undisturbed, as warm as the middle of spring. 

Bailey makes it a point to speak to everyone he can. As the new proprietor - though it’s been long enough Widget and Poppet both wish he’d take the “new” off - he tries to make himself as available as possible, as friendly and aware of what’s going on as possible. It’s better to be transparent, and Bailey only keeps secrets that are an absolute necessity to keep. He has an embarrassing conversation with the elder Murrays, who seem almost as taken with him as their children and treat him similarly, and one long, private aside with a slender, long-limbed acrobat with close cropped hair the color of raven’s wing.

Everyone has a lovely time, and it’s only in the very early hours of the morning that people start to retire. There’s an amiable sort of chaos as the circus members return to their own rooms for rest, their quiet conversations punctuated with the occasional yawn. Widget takes Poppet by the hand and they bid their parents goodnight and start to head to their quarters, their respective bedrooms and the round parlor that connects them.

As soon as he can get away, Bailey follows. 

(*) 

Widget drinks a hot, fragrant tea from a chipped china teacup with delicately etched blue flowers around its rim. There is a small measure of whiskey, as well, and Widget exhales in quiet pleasure after his first swallow.

“Someone asked to leave tonight, didn’t they?” Poppet asks. Bailey has been quiet since the party drew to a close and though she can’t read him as well as she can read Widget, she knows what this particular silence means. “That’s what the stars were trying to tell me.”

“It wasn’t mother and father,” Widget says. His voice is stubborn and his brows draw down over his dark eyes with their thick, feathery lashes. “They would have told us.” 

“I know.” Poppet pours a cup of tea from the silver service sitting on the table between them. Steam curls up in a thin, wavering tendril and she hands the cup to Bailey, who is sitting in a tall, wing-backed chair behind her. 

He has grown up well, though privately Poppet thinks all the growing up he would ever do happened the day the circus passed to him. He became different then, different in a way completely independent to any changes to his exterior. He is even taller now, his shoulders broader and his arms thicker with muscle. His jaw is sharper and his cheekbones more pronounced, the roundness of childhood gone from his face. His eyes, though, remain the same - still warm and bright, a fire behind them stoked with the solid tinder of his dreams. He has always been a dreamer and that is how he will always remain. It is, she thinks, one of his better qualities. He is also, she thinks - sometimes to herself and sometimes to Widget, who laughs at her but when pressed agrees - very handsome.

“Thank you,” Bailey says politely, taking the cup from Poppet. He takes a sip and chuckles when he tastes it - it is smooth and tastes sharply of fall, with hints of chocolate and rich blood orange. “You remembered. I haven’t had this since Halloween.” 

“It’s your favorite,” she says simply. She takes her own cup, chipped in the same place as Widget’s, and sips quietly at her own chamomile, enjoying the warmth that spreads from her throat, curling through the rest of her body until she feels the pleasant tingle of heat and good company even down to her toes. Poppet looks at her brother. “And you shouldn’t worry about our parents like you do. They’d tell us if they were getting tired.”

“They are getting tired,” Widgets says, “and you worry just as much as I do.”

“It was one of the acrobats,” Bailey says. “Mariette. She told me that when the circus left it would leave without her. I think she met someone.”

“Was it the poet?”

Poppet raises one eyebrow and looks at her brother. “The poet? Who is the poet?”

Widget shrugs and takes another sip of his tea before answering. “I don’t know who it is, but I could read it on her - it’s been going on for months now, I think, someone sending her love letters.”

Bailey smiles like he has a secret and looks down at the floor. “She says his name is Franklin and he lost his voice when he was fourteen. He can’t speak and he lives alone in a boarding house and he loves to read more than anything else in the world. He goes to the circus whenever it’s near enough and he fell in love with her the first moment he saw her, though he didn’t know if it was with her or just with the circus until he finally learned her name.”

“I guess he’s her dream now.” Poppet thinks of the stars again, and the grey-eyed child with the easy smile and the quiet laugh who spun like a ballerina and leapt as gracefully as a deer she saw. “I’ll miss her.”

Bailey nods and puts his cup down on the little round end table beside his chair. “I didn’t think it fair to ask her to stay.”

The three sit quietly for a long moment. There is noise outside from the storm, but inside it is cozy and warm. The room has always belonged to Poppet and Widget, but there are traces of Bailey there now, too, and instead of crowded it only feels more complete. Poppet clears her throat. She takes another sip of tea and then sets her cup down in its saucer. There is a small wicker basket beside the table and she rummages through it until she finds an ivory hairbrush with soft bristles. “Would you mind?” she asks Bailey, holding out the brush. 

She settles herself on the tufted red ottoman in front of him, letting her hair fall in heavy locks over her back and shoulders. Bailey takes the brush and pulls her hair behind her, letting his fingers gently comb through it. “Only,” he says, as he puts a hand on her shoulder and lets his thumb rest against her neck, “if Widget will tell us a story.”

“Of course he will,” she says. Bailey’s thumb moves up and down in a slow, careful slide. “Won’t you, Widge?”

“I suppose. I’ll need a little encouragement first.”

“Don’t pretend like you wouldn’t do it just to enjoy the sound of your own voice.”

Widget feigns an expression of hurt, but Bailey snorts, completely undignified, and his face softens into a sheepish sort of smile. “Here,” Bailey says. He tosses over a packet of the newest circus confection, crispy twists of pastry that uncurled and burst alive with flavors of orange or cinnamon or buttercream as they crunched pleasantly between teeth. Widget catches it, pleased, and pops two into his mouth. 

“Carrot cake,” he says, “and lemon cream.”

“Would you like one?” Bailey asks Poppet. She nods and turns, and he places one gently on her tongue. She bites it and a delightfully rich flavor of raspberry jelly fills her mouth. “They’re very good.”

“What kind of story do you want?” Widget asks. He settles back against the arm of the little sofa, drawing his feet up and pulling a crocheted afghan in bright shades of red over his legs. “Or is it purveyor’s choice?”

“Something familiar,” Bailey says.

Poppet nods. “A fairy tale.”

“All right.” Widget purses his lips and thinks for a moment. “I’m sure you’ve both heard this one before.” Bailey starts brushing Poppet’s hair, letting the soft bristles smooth over the flaming tresses from the crown of her head to the ends. She sighs and listens as her brother starts to speak. “There was a prosperous kingdom ruled by a strong king and his beautiful queen. She was graceful, of unparalleled loveliness, with hair sleek and golden and eyes that shamed the stars in the sky with their sparkle. But she was not strong like the king and after a long, painful illness she died. The king was distraught, beside himself with grief. His perfect, beautiful wife was gone and now his perfect, beautiful kingdom needed a new queen. He vowed that he would never marry again unless his new bride surpassed his old one in beauty in every way.”

“Ahh,” Poppet said as Widget continued, “it’s Donkeyskin.” Bailey was still brushing her hair in smooth, even strokes.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard him tell it.”

“Just wait,” she says warmly. She leans back a little, into his touch. “When he describes the dresses you’ll swear you can see them right in the room with you. I’ve wanted to ask Lainie if she could get them made somehow, but I don’t know if it would be the same. Perfect, in their own way, but… I don’t think it would be the same.”

They stop speaking, too wrapped up in Widget’s tale for conversation. He holds them captive until the story is finished, the brush still held, unmoving in Bailey’s hand.

“I suppose it’s time to go,” Bailey says after Widget is finished. “Thank you both, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Wait,” Poppet says. “We haven’t given you your gift from us yet.”

Widget stands up from his sofa, stretching his arms above his head and trying unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn. He unearths a small present from behind a pile of books and hands it unceremoniously to Bailey. “Happy Christmas,” he says.

“Thank you.” Bailey carefully unties the ribbon and removes the lid of the box. Inside is a tall, cylindrical bottle made of clear glass. There are black and white spheres inside, each smaller than a fingernail and mostly transparent. They appear to be suspended in something though there is no indication of any sort of liquid inside the bottle. Bailey recognizes Widget’s work and gives him a warm smile.

“It’s your first trip here,” Widget says. “Before you knew us, or anything about the circus. When you were just a visitor, like anybody else. It’s important to remember that, to know what it looks like from the outside, how much it means to those not a part of it. Celia told me that once.”

“Thank you,” Bailey says again, though his tone has grown more reverent. “I… Thank you.”

“That is from both of us,” she says, “though of course Widget did it. This, I think, is just from me.” She takes out a crown made of small branches twisted into a circle. It smells of pine and there are sprigs of mistletoe braided in. Poppet places it atop his head and smiles at him with shining eyes. She kisses him, fitting her mouth over his, sweet and deep and achingly gentle. Her hands cup his face when she pulls away and he thinks she smells like a crackling fireplace - warm, sharp, like home. 

The blizzard outside grows worse and the snow piles in dangerous drifts around the circus - which remains, as though in the eye of a storm, almost untouched. Widget goes to his room and Bailey follows Poppet to hers. Her skin is soft and pale as moonlight and she tastes like the tea she'd made for him earlier - sweet and rich and warm.


End file.
